Personal computers and business computers are continually attacked by trojans, spyware, and adware, collectively referred to as “malware” or “pestware.” These types of programs generally act to gather information about a person or organization—often without the person or organization's knowledge. Some pestware is highly malicious Other pestware is non-malicious but may cause issues with privacy or system performance. And yet other pestware is actual beneficial or wanted by the user. Wanted pestware is sometimes not characterized as “pestware” or “spyware.” But, unless specified otherwise, “pestware” as used herein refers to any program that collects and/or reports information about a person or an organization and any “watcher processes” related to the pestware.
Software is available to detect and remove pestware, but removing pestware from a system is frequently problematic because the system's operating system typically locks a pestware file when a pestware process associated with the pestware file is running in the system's memory. As a consequence, the operating system prevents existing pestware removal software from analyzing the locked file and/or deleting the pestware file.